Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

Mayflower is the story of the original Plymouth settlement and beyond. It begins with the 1620 voyage of the Mayflower to New England, in modern day Massachusetts. The Pilgrims were searching for a place where they could live and worship in peace. What they found were major challenges every step of the way. The author describes their difficult voyage, their choice to end their journey in New England instead of continuing on to Virginia as originally planned, and difficulties of those first months trying to establish their town.

As the story continues through the first 55 years of the settlement at Plymouth, and the surrounding colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maine, the author tells both sides of the story, detailing the struggles and successes of Pilgrims & Puritans and also the Native American tribes in the region. Most of the original settlers seemed content to live side by side with the Indians but the first and second generations born here were more intent to increase their wealth and destroy the "savages". Some of the Native Americans just accepted their situation while others chose to finally stand up and put an end to their mistreatment leading to King Philips War in 1675-6.

This easy read taught me more than I think I ever learned in school about the early days of the New England Colonies. One thing that occurred to me that I had never thought of before was the the Pilgrims arrived in New England in 1620 and, although there were already other settlements along the Atlantic seaboard, it was only 150 years before things came to a boil in New England between the American Colonies and the British. We went from a few scattered towns to a new country in what seems to me to be a short period of time. Even though many of the Mayflower passengers died during the passage or during that first winter, the surviving passengers would be proud to know that, according to the author, their descendents number approximately 35 million. Now those are some big family trees!